Tuesday, August 04, 2009

Aristotle, Free Food, And The Illusion Of Intelligence

I ran across this interesting passage from Aristotle over the weekend. From Book One of Ethics:

Since in every case a man judges rightly what he understands, and of this only is a good critic, it follows that while in a special field the good critic is a specialist, the good critic in general is the man with a general education.

That is why a young man is not a fit person to attend lectures on political science, because he is not versed in the practical business of life from which politics draws its premises and subject-matter.

Besides, he tends to follow his feelings, with the result that he will make no headway and derive no benefit from his course, since the object of it is not knowledge but action.

It makes no difference whether he is young in age or youthful in character; the defect is due not to lack of years but to living, and pursuing one's various aims, under sway of the feelings; for to people like this knowledge becomes as unprofitable as it is for the incontinent.

Aristotle's observation on the value of life experience seemed the perfect commentary upon this video, featuring a young lady as sincere as she is enthusiastic, delivering an (impromptu?) address to a 2008 Santa Cruz City Council meeting. [I'm having trouble embedding the video, for some reason, so you'll have to follow the link. Fortunately I had made a transcript of the speech shortly after I first heard the audio broadcast over last week's Northern Alliance Radio Network talk show. I let myself miss the occasional "umm" and "uhh", otherwise I hope the transcript is pretty accurate..:]

Young Speaker: Well, the crops are, um, growing very well, and they’re organic and have pesticides and I think that we should make a perfect pesticide for the crops, that is good for people, and uh, healthy, and keeps the crops preserved, because, we need the FOOD, because it’s food and stuff, and organic food is good also…Um… and the businesses downtown really need to lower their rent, because if the rent was lower those people would really have their own businesses, they have enough stuff, they’re very good at making things, they’re experts, they’re really good…And we can really be a community, and make good things, and, um, sell them in our stores, that it can be a California thing, it can really work out, because we can be rich in cotton, and mining metals, and silkworms, and we can make things, things like cars, the machine can make it for us. And we can have the community, and the city, and San Francisco things, and put them in a store…On the East Coast they have slaves, they believe in slavery, and Made In China, but, on the West Coast, the new West Coast, we don’t believe in that, we believe in the union, and that’s what we are….In the Bush administration, which is really good, he has government funding for small business owners…You can grow every type of fruit and vegetable you want, that’s how they do it. They have fruit trees, and vegetable trees, that’s where fruit and vegetable comes from…You freeze the fruit and vegetables, and it’ll last forever. You can put, you know, broccoli or strawberries in the freezer and it’ll last forever. If you don’t, you know, it might go bad in a bit…People, we live in California, this is our home, this is where we live…Growing food is so good, for the people, because, it’s free. All’s you have to do is pay the farmers. And pay for the land. But, why do we have to pay for the land, the land’s free, it’s new land, you know, I mean do we have to pay for the land, do we have to pay rent; the food’s free. So we should just sell it… at the farmer’s market.

City Councillor: [laconically] Thank You. Next speaker…

It probably won't seem like it, but I'm really not trying to make fun of the young lady; Lord knows this is probably what I sound like half the time I try to make myself sound smart. I think, in fact, I have much to learn from watching the video; it's helped to bring into clearer focus some half-formed ideas I've been writing about, off-and-on over the years, on what it means to actually be intelligent.

Starting with the recognition of how valuable the simple act of conversation can be as the backbone to one's education. I wonder how many of the holes in this young lady's knowledge base arose from never having anyone really test that knowledge by honestly discussing her ideas with her... what intellectual poverty it must be, to be surrounded with friends and family (and teachers) who completely agree with everything you believe. The hallmark of civility, the art of agreeing to disagree, is sadly becoming a lost art, it seems, through being increasingly unpracticed, and therefore unappreciated. ("As Iron Sharpens Iron, So One Man Sharpens Another." Proverbs 27:17)

The fame (or should I say, infamy) of this video suggests the next lesson: the contribution that humility makes in the march towards intelligence. Presumably the young lady in the video knows by now how many hundreds of thousands of people around the world have watched her speech since she gave it last year. (I guess I'm contributing to her humiliation by posting it here... sorry about that) I hope the sometimes cruel comments and mocking criticisms don't end up discouraging her from picking herself up and trying to fill some of those holes in her education. This, I think, is the key to the second most important facet of being "intelligent": the acceptance that improving our intelligence comes with a heavy price tag... it costs us the illusion of our infallibility.

Fortunately, if the necessary lesson in humility is learned early enough in life, the gift of time can counter-balance the follies that come with youthful vanity. Believing that, however, requires what I have grown to consider the single most important facet to intelligence: the ability to have faith, the imagination to believe that no matter how far we fall, how little we may become, how deeply we end up regretting our choices in life... we have within us the potential to always renew our self.